


Only You

by ultrahotpink



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: Angst, Comfort, F/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-12
Updated: 2016-12-12
Packaged: 2018-09-08 03:04:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8828005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ultrahotpink/pseuds/ultrahotpink
Summary: Jed reflects after a long day.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by the Mercy Street Holiday Prompt Calendar's Prompt from Day One: Gifts. I wrote the majority of this on that day, but I've been tweaking it ever since, and finally decided to post it. Thank you to everyone that has participated in the challenge thus far. Your contributions are amazing! I hope you enjoy my first one of the holiday season.

Jed sat on the bench outside the main surgical room holding his head in his hands. It was a trying day, with surgery after surgery. Not as grueling as the fortnight following Antietam, but nearly. His only consolation had been that when he looked up he could see her face. Her encouraging gaze and occasional grazes of their fingers as she had passed him instruments had been the only thing to keep him going through the seven consecutive surgeries. 

But all of the men had survived, at least for the present. Although whether or not they would remain so he didn't know. That was the trouble with being housed in a place of constant death, it had taught him that sometimes survival was a matter of chance. A man could go through the most gruelling of procedures with no hope, and survive, while another otherwise healthy man could take a turn and be dead within the hour.  
If he were still the man he'd been when Eliza had left him, he would most certainly be on the precipice of life or death himself. Indeed there were days when he'd fallen under the weight of despair and might have suffocated under it, were it not for the sight of Mary helping to feed a soldier too ill to lift his hand, or when she would find him with a problem of the hospital. And then there were the rare days where they were able to have a real conversation. Those days restored him more than any dose of morphine or drink ever could. He had replaced one drug with another. And he was not sure if he could give her up. But unlike morphine, he did not have the luxury or inclination to use Mary for his own selfish pleasure. Perhaps it was best that he’d only had her in dribs and drabs. Any more of her might cause him to spiral into something he couldn’t control. 

"Jed?" Mary asked.

Of course she would appear before him, when he had been thinking of her. She'd always appeared when he needed her, even if at the time he didn't know it. But oh, how he knew it now.

He lifted his head from his hands and looked up to see her carrying two mugs and moving towards him. She was wearing her white black flowered shirt, and a black skirt, probably left over from her days of mourning, although it suited her pale skin and dark hair well. 

She handed him the drink, sitting down next to him. "It's only a little chamomile. I have some when I've had a trying day, but know I need rest. I thought perhaps that you could use some as well."

"Thank you." he said.

He could feel her arm brush his as she took a drink. He closed his eyes, taking a sip from his own mug. 

"You should be in bed." she said looking down into her mug.

"So should you, but we neither of us like to do what other people tell us to."

He looked at her and she smiled. He felt his heart contract from it. How in love he must be with her if she could do so little and have it mean so much.

"I suppose that is so, although I believe that’s to our benefit. After all, are you not executive officer and I head nurse?”

He smiled. “I suppose we may act as we deem fit then.” 

She nodded. “I thought that we both deserved to celebrate after such a hard fought day."

"Celebrate?" He put down his mug. What was there to celebrate in this god forsaken war, he thought, but said nothing.

She took a deep breath, staring intently into his eyes. "Those men, those boys are all alive because of you. I know it wasn't easy to keep going, but now they will live to see another day. You have given them a great gift."

"Well, you were right there with me. I could not have done what I did without you."

She shook her head. "I'm sure another orderly or nurse-"

"No." he grasped her hand suddenly, his eyes meeting hers. "Only you."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading. Please feel free to like or kudos if you have the time.


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